“could not add sta to kernel driver” hostapd - not able to connect more then 10 clients

Question

I am using an nuc with wifi card "intel 3165" with ubuntu 14.04 amd64 server edition and kernel version 4.2.0.27 . I have isc-dhcp-server, dnsmasq, hostapd installed and configured on the system .

I soon ran into the problem where I can not connect more than 10 devices . When I try to connect 11th device I get a message in syslog as could not add sta to kernel driver .

kernel wifi list says support for intel 3165 has been added after kernel version 4.1 and so I am using kernel 4.2 , however got stuck with this problem . I am using hostapd v2.1 .

What does this error message exactly means ? Whats the solution to this problem ?

Hostapd.conf-

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid=hotspot-1
hw_mode=g
channel=1
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=3
wpa_passphrase=mypassword
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP

Answer 1

Seems like this was the default limit on the card. It supports max 10-12 devices with some tweaking around channel=11 .

To connect more number of devices we need to look in for alternative wireless card .